Prior art discloses numerous devices for delivering matter into the soil that consist of an elongated tubular barrel in association with a rod or tapered cone for probing a hole in the soil. Much of the prior art is devoted to devices that will place fertilizer, poison pellets or granular materials in the soil. A much greater amount of prior art depicts devices designed to plant only small tree or vegetable seedlings. A couple of prior art disclosures feature devices designed to plant seeds. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,694, only Kratky describes a transplanter capable of planting seeds, bulbs, and plants featuring both a dibble for probing a hole in the soil and a mechanical device for covering the planted object.
There are several attributes that appear in all prior art, including kratky. Prior devices have tube cylinders designed to store a quantity of granular or pellet material within or in an adjacent tube. Characteristically, they have a rod or dibble that must be mechanically extended past the cylinder's bottom end as a method of opening a hole in the soil. Then some type of manual manipulation of parts is required to retract the rod within the cylinder and thereby open a passageway for the material to bypass the rod and exit to the soil. Another similar device utilizes a split inverted tapered cone for soil penetration that opens upon further manual downward motion of a reciprocating plunger allowing the plunger to extract a seed that is fed to the plunger by a cylindrical conveyer housing.
All prior art is described by complicated mechanisms consisting of springs, rods, levers, cylinders, platforms, handles, straps, and other cumbersome features most of which require repetitive manipulation, and are difficult and costly to manufacture, use and maintain. Only Krathy has presented a tool to plant seeds, bulbs, and plants with soil opening and closing capability; however his tool has no soil depth control which limits its application for planting small seeds that require a precise depth. The novelty of this present invention over all prior art is that it is a tool capable of planting seeds, bulbs, and plants embodied in a simplistic device free of repetitive mechanical component manipulation for each task, that enables precise placement, soil opening capability with depth adjustment, and lateral soil coverage with a singular downward motion of the tool. Another novelty of this present invention is it features a probe large enough to open a hole in the soil which will accommodate most seeds, various size bulbs, and even live plants. A problem solved by this present invention is that the soil probe hosts a simplistic soil depth control mechanism which enables the gardener to plant seeds to a prescribed depth and with one adjustment continue planting either bulbs, or plants with the same tool. Further, the present invention allows the planted object to be covered with soil without the additional mechanisms of prior art that required manipulation. Finally, the simplicity of manufacture and operation of the present tool is superior over previous art which has complicated mechanisms and numerous interdependent working parts that could become jammed or clogged.
This present invention is a unique tool with applications not limited to planting small flower beds, entire home gardens, and even commercial projects. Another of its more applicable uses is as a tool to replant skips in existing plant stands without any disturbance to adjacent plants.